When it comes to crafting excellent haiku, all poetics are local. No one knows
that better than Yu Chang, whose work demonstrates the in-person, in-the-moment,
concreteness that is the essence of fine haiku.
Another kind of “localness” was especially serendipitous for me: last year, I learned
that the Yu Chang whose haiku I ‘ve been admiring for years spends much of his time
less than a mile from my home, as a professor of electrical engineering at Union College.
He and I share Schenectady, New York, as our adopted City.
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It was also inspiring to learn that Yu — like myself — started writing haiku in
his 50’s. Unlike myself, however, he was winning international haiku
contests within a year of penning his first haiku. Maybe Yu’s haiku muse
will make a detour to my neighborhood once in a while, and help me learn,
from his example, the art and craft of the haijin.
Everyone who knows Yu comments on his sense of humor and his modesty. Both
can be seen in his haiku (where he allows the reader to take his place experiencing
the haiku moment) and in his freqent expressions of gratitude for the generosity and
encouragement of his friends at the online Shiki Internet Haiku Salon.
“streetsigns” Yu’s haiku have won numerous awards, and his poetry appears in the journals
and anthologies to which all English-language haiku poets aspire: Acorn, Frogpond,
Hermitage, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, and Tundra. At present, he is active
as a founding member of the Route 9 Haiku Group, which publishes the biannual
journal, Upstate Dim Sum. The Route 9ers are Yu, Hilary Tann, and our honored
guests John Stevenson and Tom Clausen.
You can learn much more about Yu Chang as a haiku poet in an AHAPoetry profile,
written in 2001. I’m sure Yu will groan when he sees this sentence, but I agree with
the Profile’s author, Ty Hadman, that “Yu Chang is one of the poets currently writing
haiku that are not only being appreciated today but will also be added to that treasure
chest of haiku classics in English to be preserved for future generations.”
Choosing introductory haiku from Yu’s entire body of work is too difficult, so I will limit the
source today to the first collection that I found of his work, which was in A New Resonance:
Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (Ed. by Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts, Red
Moon Press, 1999):
Steve and Sam and the gang are probably already tooling down a
Click here for a photo of dagosan and his inspiration, Mama.G,
George Wallace wonders whether the ’60’s are now officially over. See why.
Yu Chang, from 
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